Yet 'surely' groaned patient job, 'there _is_ a path
which the vulture's eye hath not seen!'
You, at any rate, know by this time that wherever these
lectures assert literature they assert life, perhaps even too
passionately, allowing neither the fact of death nor the
possibility of divorce.
II
But let us begin with the first word, '_Value_'--'The _Value_ of
Greek and Latin in English Literature.' What do I mean by
'Value'? Well, I use it, generally, in the sense of 'worth'; but
with a particular meaning, or shade of meaning, too. And, this
particular meaning is not the particular meaning intended (as I
suppose) by men of commerce who, on news of a friend's death,
fall a-musing and continue musing until the fire kindles, and
they ask 'What did So-and-so die worth?' or sometimes, more
wisely than they know, 'What did poor old So-and-so die worth?'
or again, more colloquially, 'What did So-and-so "cut up" for?'
Neither is it that which more disinterested economists used to
teach; men never (I fear me) loved, but anyhow lost awhile, who
for my green unknowing youth, at Thebes or Athens--growing older
I tend to forget which is, or was, which--defined the Value of a
thing as its 'purchasing power' which the market translates into
'price.
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